Weekend in Montauk New York

My younger son Chris and his friend and fellow physicist Mohan from U Rochester joined me for the weekend on Pandora. We rendezvoused in Mystic on Friday evening and had dinner at Mystic Pizza, made famous the the movie of the same name starring Julia Roberts. It's certainly the only pizza joint in the country showing that movie in continuous loops 20 hours a day. I believe that was the role that launched Julia Roberts career. Chris, now living in NYC, the pizza capital of the universe, declared the pizza substandard but OK. It was made more palatable by the hot fudge sunday that soon followed.

On Saturday morning we left the mooring in Mystic early to catch the tide which was going to turn against us by 10am if we didn't exit Long Island Sound before it begain flooding against us at 10am. The wind was 5-10 out of the East so it was favorable to take us to Montauk at the very most eastern tip of Long Island Sound. The last time I visited was about 25 years ago when Brenda and I went there on our first boat TAO, our 20' catboat.

Montauk has always been primarily been a fishing town and I felt almost as out of place on this visit as I did when Brenda and I visited so many years ago. However, the accommodations aboard Pandora surely are a big step up now and she is more in scale with the size of the other boats in port (well, sort of). I'll bet that there weren't 10 sailboats in the entire port and everyone else is a big sport fisherman. When I say "in the port" I mean in the marina as there aren't any moorings or any boats anchoring out at all.

I asked someone in one of the marina offices how business was and, just like in Greenport, was told that business is very slow. You have to wonder what will happen with all these businesses if this summer is a bust with the soft economy.

The harbor is large, about 1 mile wide but it's shallow in most places (under 10'). Pandora was only one of 3 boats anchored out at all. Another negative about the harbor is that town is a good 5 miles and a cab ride away.

In spite of that the boys and I had a good visit, renting bikes and heading out to Montauk light. The sign at the light says that George Washington ordered the building of the light as the first lighthouse in New York State. It's really quite impressive and situated on a high bluff.

Most lighthouses that we visit are very informally operated but in true New York State Historic Park Service fashion, they had a ticket booth, gift store and a large staff made up of dedicated middle age guides with wireless headsets and uniforms. The staff had everything a National Historic Landmark could want except perhaps knowledge of the site beyond what they got from the site informational flier. I was amused, while at the top of the light to hear one women's question of "where did the light house keeper sleep" answered by a somewhat perplexed guide "I guess that he slept on the floor here", pointing to the landing at the top of the stairs. She went on to explain that the keeper's home was down the stairs and down the road a bit. Certainly he didn't walk the 100 yards from his home to the light multiple times a day. She also, in a completely authoritative voice stated that the "light was very efficient and didn't even need electricity to be seen". A fact not hard to imagine as the light was commissioned in the 1700s, a long time prior to the advent of electricity.

The view from the top of the tower is really something and given the fact that the site itself is on the top of a very high bluff, you can easily see Block Island and CT. Unfortunately, for safety reasons, you can only peek out on the balcony but it's great none the less.

My son Chris, a physics grad student at Columbia, had lots to say about the Fresnel lens

from the old light unit as it seems that the Frenchman Fresnel did some important work in optics back in the 1700s. This lens unit was a very impressive massive unit of bronze and glass. A true work of art and it must of have weighed a ton as it was over 6' in diameter. The trip up to the top is not for the claustrophobic.

Not a great shot of a photo in the museum but this is of Oliver Osborn who's family took the last

whale off of Wainscot Long Island back in 1907. He looks like a tough old bird. I knew that the Osborn clan always enjoyed the water.

Another famous visitor to the area was Teddy Roosevelt who's Rough Riders came to the area following the Spanish American War to be quarantined due to yellow fever and malaria. I guess that's why there are unexploded bombs in the woods, something that is clearly posted in signs all over the place once you are off the main road. The message is clear and not something that you see every day. Chris and Mohan were terrified.